


Perfero

by lady_wordsmith



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkwardness, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Romance, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 02:58:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12003558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_wordsmith/pseuds/lady_wordsmith
Summary: Perfero: To endure, to suffer, to tell, to convey.Request from tumblr for an angsty Daryl fic. Daryl shares his past with you following a misunderstanding.(Takes place in the same universe as and shortly after the events ofIncoendium. Reading that first is recommended, but not required.)





	Perfero

“A horse ranch.” Daryl says, looking up from his crossbow bolts one night at the fire. “You grew up on a horse ranch.”

You grin at him, with a chuckle.

“Of sorts, yes. It was more of one of those ‘rich kid boot camps,’ with a side of ‘better living through shoveling horse shit.’”

“I’da thought…” he trails off, before shaking his head and returning to the bolt. “Never mind.”

“What?” you ask, reaching forward and grabbing his hand. He looks up at you, and you see him swallow.

“Was it one of them? The kids who were sent to the ranch?” he asks.

You look at him dumbly for a minute, and it only clicks when he motions to the burned side of your face. _Oh_. It’s ridiculous, you realize, how being with Daryl has sometimes all but made you forget about the hideous burn scars on the left side of your face and upper body. The way he looks at you… No one has ever looked at you like that before, and you always knew why. It makes you think of fires again, and it should make you nervous and maybe sometimes it does, but most of the time it’s a fire you would gladly dive into without a thought.

“Yeah, it was. It _was_ an accident, though. Why?” you ask.

Daryl shakes his head.

“I thought you were lyin’, first time you told me. Thought it was your parents or somethin’.” He tells you, putting the bolt he was working on to the side and starting on a new one.

“Why?” but Daryl doesn’t respond, working on his bolt. You sigh. “Y’know, Dixon, sometimes you say things and never explain. Drives me fucking nuts. I’ll get an answer out of you yet.”

“Not tonight, you won’t.” Daryl says, and the tone of his comment and the half-smirk he shoots you would almost make you think it was a joke, but you know better.

* * *

You suspected why Daryl was willing to believe the worst about your parents. Nothing concrete, just little pieces of information that are like translating Latin, like trying to put words in the correct order and form and not having being able to read all the sentence parts to get an idea.

He doesn’t let you touch him much. At first you think it’s about acclimating you to the idea of physical contact, but the way Daryl hesitates to even hold your hand and the almost imperceptible flinch he makes if you try to initiate physical contact makes you wonder.

During supply runs and trap checks, when the two of you are alone and one of you pushes the other against a tree or a wall and allow yourselves a ridiculous moment to make out like horny teenagers… Even then, when he does initiate contact, when it’s more heated than the holding of hands, it doesn’t take much to realize Daryl is always aware of where your hands are, and that he keeps your hands from wandering too much. You start suspecting if the two of you ever had sex, Daryl would probably try and keep as much clothing on as possible.

You start ruminating over possibilities, and gentle ways to broach the topic, but you come up empty. Hiding in books has left you with few social graces, and while Daryl probably appreciates your blunt honesty and transparency any other time, asking him about his issues in any form feels like being faced with a glaring red neon sign that reads **KEEP OUT**.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” you ask him one night, the two of you huddling together, his arm around you pulling you close while your head rests on his shoulder.

“Mm-hmm.” Daryl mumbles, his eyes fluttering closed.

“And you know I won’t judge you?”

“Yep.”

“Anything at all, Daryl.”

“Somethin’ wrong, darlin’?” Daryl asks as he opens his eyes to look at you. He’s noticed your nerves, noticed your worried looks, and has wondered if something is wrong. It hasn’t occurred to him you’re worried about him, that your mind is working overtime trying to figure him out.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” You sigh. “Daryl, why did you think my parents burned me?”

Daryl freezes beside you, and his eyes dart around like a trapped animal. You almost want to take the question back, but he answers before you can.

“I thought… just made sense, is all.” He tells you.

“Made sense, how? Child abuse usually isn’t anybody’s first line of thought about this.” You say, gesturing to your face.

“It’s not?” Daryl asks as you shake your head.

“No. Usually people think I pissed a boyfriend off. Like in those stories you’d see on TV, you know? So why did you think…” you trail off, uncertain how to finish.

“I told you, just made sense.” Daryl’s voice is defensive, and you suspect you’re standing at the edge of a snake pit now, full of venomous vipers and rattlers and god knows what else.

“But why, though? Why does that make sense to you?” you ask. “Daryl, were you-“

“That’s enough.” Daryl cuts you off, his voice and stony. He lets go of you and pulls away, and you can see in what little firelight there is that his face is an impassive mask.

“Daryl, I’m sorry,” you tell him, but he rises up and walks over to the fire, joining the rest of the group. Maggie and Glenn are keeping watch, and Maggie shoots you a worried look, but you give her a small smile and pull your jacket tighter around yourself, ignoring both the physical cold and emotional chill running through you.

* * *

Daryl doesn’t speak to you for days after that, and he certainly doesn’t get as close to you as he has been. The shift is immediate and noticeable to the others, and Carol pulls you aside on the third day.

“Everything all right between you and Daryl?” she asks. You sigh, but plaster on a smile and give a nod.

“Just peachy. We can’t be attached at the hip all the time.” You say, taking out your knife and the whetstone you had found some time earlier and sharpening it.

“Maggie said it looked like the two of you had a fight at the fire the other night. That true?”

You sigh again, and look up from your knife like the discussion is boring you. Carol looks back at you, that “don’t give me your shit” look on her face you’ve seen whenever someone tries to pull a fast one. You bite your lip, shake your head, and look away, pretending to examine your knife.

“It’s nothing, Carol. Just me stampeding over social boundaries like always.”

“You’re not _that_ bad. What happened?” Carol persists.

You put your knife and whetstone away, and look at her with a watery smile.

“You’re like my mom, you know that? She was pushy, too, always wanting to talk about feelings and shit, even when I wanted to hide and bury it all down.” You tell her.

Carol smiles back at you. “I’m pretty sure that’s a mom thing all around.” She says gently, and you flinch. Daryl had told you about Sophia. Just great, you stepped on another person’s emotional wound.

“I’m sorry. I did it again, salt in someone’s wounds.” You say, but Carol shakes her head.

“It happens. You’re human.” Carol says, before her face turns stern and serious. “What happened with Daryl? Am I going to have to kick that boy’s ass?”

“Carol. It was my fault. I should have respected his privacy.”

“I’m just saying, talk about no social graces, if there was a competition for that, Daryl would win gold. Trust me, if you had been here earlier, you would have been disgusted.”

You giggle in spite of yourself, and you and Carol share a smile.

“It’ll work out.” Carol reassures you. “Just let him stew for a few days. If he hasn’t pulled his head out of his ass, some of us’ll talk to him.”

“Don’t do that.” You say in a whisper, feeling mortified.

“Sorry, honey, you’re family now.” Carol says, patting your shoulder with a laugh.

“Isn’t Daryl family, then?” you ask, but Carol laughs again.

“Not in this case. He’s the dumbass boyfriend who needs a boot up his ass.”

* * *

It’s near sundown on the tenth day when Daryl finally approaches you again.

“Can we talk?” he asks.

You nod and Daryl takes your hand, leading you away and out of sight of the group, into a small thicket of trees. You’re tempted to make a joke about the last time you were together in a place so thick with trees, but bite your lip and let the urge pass.

Daryl is quiet for a long time, and as the sun dips lower you almost want to tell him to get on with it before dark or the others will assume you’re both dead, but you know whatever Daryl has to say is important and you merely look back at him, waiting.

“I don’t want pity. Not from anyone, but definitely not from you.” Daryl says finally.

You’re still not sure what he means, but you nod.

“Okay,” you manage to say. “I understand-“

“I’m not sure you do.” Daryl cuts in, and then he sighs and looks away, contemplating how to tell you.

Your eyes widen as Daryl turns away and removes his vest and shirt. At least, you’re tempted to make a dark joke about if he’s planning on having his way with you that you’ll scream and not in pleasure, but in the waning half-light you can see the thick, criss-crossing scars on his back and any attempt at humor dies on your lips. You step forward, reaching out a hesitant hand to touch the scars, but Daryl shifts away and turns to face you, and his face is stone like it was the night you last spoke.

“Do you get it now?” he asks, and he reaches to get his shirt but you grab his hand and he pauses, uncertain of what it is you’re doing.

You bite your lip and reach your hand to touch Daryl’s back, keeping your eyes on his the whole time. He seems confused as you trace the scars, but doesn’t make a move to stop you.

“How?” you ask, letting your hands rest on his back.

 Daryl had always been careful never to let your hands touch his back like this, but now you’re resting your hands flat along the expanse of his back, your palms resting where the scars are plentiful and your fingers webbing out to trace paths in the scars. He thought he would hate being touched, especially would hate the thought of his scars being touched, but when you do it, it’s clear you mean no harm. He still flinches a little when you first touch his back, and there’s still that slight crawling feeling underneath like he has to get away, but on the whole, Daryl doesn’t mind the warmth and softness of your hands.

“My old man. But you knew that, didn’t ya?” he asks. “From your questions.”

You nod.

“Do you hate him for it?” you ask. It sounds like a dumb question to your ears, but Daryl sighs and shrugs, leaving your embrace and reaching once again for his clothes.

“I tol’ you, I don’t need pity-“ he says as he pulls his shirt on, facing away from you, not wanting to see the look on your face.

“This isn’t about pity; it’s about understanding, Daryl.” You bit your lip again. “Look, what happened to me sucked, okay? But my parents, they were good people, okay? I got off lucky that all I got was a complex about my looks. But you…” you let out a bitter laugh. “Just now, that was the most you’d ever let me touch you.”

“Was not.” Daryl weakly protests as he finishes dressing and turns to face you, but even he knows that it’s true.

“Bullshit, it’s not. You’re always aware of what I’m doing at any given time, where my hands are if I reach out for you. And don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you flinch sometimes.”

“You’re makin’ me sound liked a battered woman.”

“You were abused as a child, Daryl-“

“And talkin’ about it doesn’t make it go away.” Daryl snaps at you. “I hate ‘im, is that what you wanna hear? That I wish I bashed my old man’s skull in?”

“If it’s the truth.” You tell him, and Daryl sighs.

“Does no good. Still happened. And it don’t matter. I got out, _that’s_ what matters.”

“ _Ames parentem, si aequus est, si aliter, feras._ ” You mutter, and Daryl looks over at you with a confused look.

“Which dead language is that?” he asks, and in any other time, you would have smiled at him and made a joke, but the air was still too serious around you for that.

“Latin. It, uh… It means ‘If your parent is just, revere him; if not, bear with him.’ Something along those lines. Just saying, you got out. You bore with it, y’know? I don’t know, I’m being dumb. I was just trying to-“

“I know what you were trying to do.” Daryl tells you, and his voice is softer now.

He’s not angry anymore, not at you. Not that he ever really was in the first place. He was afraid of being thought weak by you, and embarrassed that you had managed to put parts of it together without him having to say a word. But the way you related it back to the languages you spoke, the knowledge you held and shared with him eagerly, it soothed Daryl a bit. That behavior of yours felt much less like pity and more like your usual dynamic of sharing your knowledge with him, and that was acceptable. It was like you were saying you knew he couldn’t talk about it now, and might always have trouble with it, but you were trying to understand.

“I’m sorry.” You tell him, and Daryl shakes his head and pulls you into an embrace.

“I’m sorry too, darlin’.” He says, kissing your temple before lowering his head to being his lips to yours.

When you pull away, Daryl takes your hand and leads you back to where your group has set up camp for the night. The two of you take your usual places to the side of the fire, and Carol looks at you with raised eyebrows and smiles when you shrug. Daryl begins working on more crossbow bolts, but pauses to look up at you.

“Tell me that story again? That one about the march, by that Xeno guy.” He tells you.

You roll your eyes. “Xenophon.”

“Whatever.” Daryl says with a grin.

“And I’ve already told you that one at least ten times.”

“Make it eleven.”

“You’re lucky I love you, you gigantic pain in the ass.”

“I know, darlin’. Trust me, I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is not becoming another series (she says, as she contemplates more playing in the verse...)


End file.
